It is common in the plumbing industry to use plastic pipe clamps or hangers to mount pipes to both horizontal and vertical support surfaces. Both full clamps and half clamps have been utilized either to fully or partially encircle the pipes prior to attaching the clamps to mounting surfaces using suitable fasteners such as nails that are driven through passageways in the clamps and into the mounting surfaces. Such clamps typically include a plurality of circumferentially spaced integral plastic ribs or projections on the inner walls of the clamps that compressibly grip the exterior surface of the pipes.
The full clamps typically include two clamp halves that are hinged together on one side to allow the clamp halves to be opened up for encircling the pipe and then closed around the pipe prior to attaching the clamps to a support surface. An objection to these clamps is that the hinge is typically formed by providing a notch or groove on the inner surface of the clamps which precludes any of the gripping projections from being located immediately adjacent the hinge for gripping the exterior surface of the pipe immediately adjacent the hinge.
Still another objection to these types of full clamps is that the relative closeness of the free ends of the two clamp halves when the clamps are in the relaxed condition (prior to being installed around a pipe) makes it more difficult to load the clamps onto a track or rail for transporting the clamps to a machine for the automated insertion of fasteners into one of the clamp halves and also makes it more difficult to spread the clamp halves apart when placing the clamps around a pipe.
A further objection to known types of full and half clamps is that one or both ends of the half clamps or the main clamp halves of full clamps are relatively thick and rigid, which severely restricts the amount of flexibility of the half clamps or main clamp halves of the full clamps and thus the amount that the half clamps or main clamp halves of the full clamps can extend around the pipe. The greater such extension the less likely the pipe clamp mountings will become loosened around the pipe.
Moreover, a further objection to known types of full and half clamps is that separate molds are typically required to make both types of clamps, which greatly adds to the cost of manufacture of both types of clamps.